Statement: I was inspired by Rodney Graham's Vexation Island, in which Graham depicts himself as a pirate on a deserted island. Graham's work is structured so that the effect of an action, the wound on Graham's head, is presented to the viewer before the cause, the coconut falling from the tree. His piece is also constructed such that a single video can be played on loop, with the same cause leading to the same effect repeatedly. I decided to structure my piece similarly. The effect, a failed photograph, is presented at the opening of the video while the cause, a person kicking the bottles out of the shot, is shown at the end. I chose to end my piece after two cycles rather than constructing a loop, however I think that the repetitive structure is implied. I constructed my piece so that there are several parallels between my work and Graham's, like the effect-cause structure and repetitive nature, but also so that there are striking differences between the two. Graham's piece is very vibrant and tranquil with a direct visual focus on the body, while my piece is desaturated and noisy with an implied body in the feet and shadows. The stillness and quiet of Graham's work in contrast with the vibrant subject matter was very interesting to me and I decided to go in the opposite direction by focusing my work on intense dissonant sounds (I experimented with a variety of different materials and settled on a plastic bottle filled with Jolly Ranchers and a metallic bottle of hairspray) in a rather boring setting. The purpose of my piece is to comment on the nature of staged art, and so the black-and-white filter doubles as a jab at the popular misconception that desaturating an image instantly makes an average color photograph more artistic/creative. The subject of the failed photograph in my piece is very dull and out place regardless of the black-and-white film. My piece also demonstrates how easy it is to waste time assembling a staged photograph/piece instead of working on actual technique. The cyclical structure of my video also suggests that there is a danger in staging photographs in that little progress is made / that the artist doesn't take advantage of the medium because the implied artist is going in circles (both structurally in terms of the pseudo-loop and physically in terms of running around a staircase). While I initially planned to use polaroid photos to show that the subject is taking pictures, I decided to design the screen so that it looks like a collection of digital images on Mac Preview because this made for better transitions between cycles.
*disclaimer: the sound got cut off at the very end for some reason, but you're supposed to be able to hear the bottles after the screen goes white (I saved the motion file with complete sound onto the class server on my file).
Ambiguous Body, Final Project
My Work:
Statement: I was inspired by Rodney Graham's Vexation Island, in which Graham depicts himself as a pirate on a deserted island. Graham's work is structured so that the effect of an action, the wound on Graham's head, is presented to the viewer before the cause, the coconut falling from the tree. His piece is also constructed such that a single video can be played on loop, with the same cause leading to the same effect repeatedly. I decided to structure my piece similarly. The effect, a failed photograph, is presented at the opening of the video while the cause, a person kicking the bottles out of the shot, is shown at the end. I chose to end my piece after two cycles rather than constructing a loop, however I think that the repetitive structure is implied. I constructed my piece so that there are several parallels between my work and Graham's, like the effect-cause structure and repetitive nature, but also so that there are striking differences between the two. Graham's piece is very vibrant and tranquil with a direct visual focus on the body, while my piece is desaturated and noisy with an implied body in the feet and shadows. The stillness and quiet of Graham's work in contrast with the vibrant subject matter was very interesting to me and I decided to go in the opposite direction by focusing my work on intense dissonant sounds (I experimented with a variety of different materials and settled on a plastic bottle filled with Jolly Ranchers and a metallic bottle of hairspray) in a rather boring setting. The purpose of my piece is to comment on the nature of staged art, and so the black-and-white filter doubles as a jab at the popular misconception that desaturating an image instantly makes an average color photograph more artistic/creative. The subject of the failed photograph in my piece is very dull and out place regardless of the black-and-white film. My piece also demonstrates how easy it is to waste time assembling a staged photograph/piece instead of working on actual technique. The cyclical structure of my video also suggests that there is a danger in staging photographs in that little progress is made / that the artist doesn't take advantage of the medium because the implied artist is going in circles (both structurally in terms of the pseudo-loop and physically in terms of running around a staircase). While I initially planned to use polaroid photos to show that the subject is taking pictures, I decided to design the screen so that it looks like a collection of digital images on Mac Preview because this made for better transitions between cycles.
*disclaimer: the sound got cut off at the very end for some reason, but you're supposed to be able to hear the bottles after the screen goes white (I saved the motion file with complete sound onto the class server on my file).
Inspirational Work:
Vexation Island by Rodney Graham
http://www.ubu.com/film/graham_vexation.html